


Chess

by perniciousLizard



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 12:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perniciousLizard/pseuds/perniciousLizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equius has been visiting for too long, and there's tension aboard Eridan's ship-hive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chess

**Author's Note:**

> HSWC bonus round fill  
> Prompt: Tabletop games

When the fist came down into the middle of the chessboard, Eridan had already been moving back to avoid the splinters from the board. They went through a chessboard a week, these nights, and they weren't even kismesis.

Equius stood over the shattered remains of the table , breathing heavily, dripping with his own sweat.

"I know I said it's kinda hot when you do that," Eridan said, deliberately casual, "But I'm thinkin Nep might be missin you."

Equius went limp, the anger visibly draining out of him. "I...apologize. I broke another one of your kings." He held up the head of the chesspiece that he'd broken off, triggering his current tantrum. "As well as the rest of the board."

Eridan went over and put his hand on Equius' shoulder, patting him briskly. "Look, we all got our insane rages outta nowhere, you know? But this is three in a row."

"I need my moirail," he acknowledged. "I know."

"Look, you smell like somethin I dragged onto the boat half-eaten," Eridan said. "Get in the bath with me and then shove off. I got stuff to do next night anyway."

Equius enjoyed when Eridan used highblood terms like "bath," and he liked when he was commanding (along with the way the commands chafed, coming from a seadweller. He enjoyed that disgusting feeling more than anything), so he complied. He also, not incidentally, enjoyed the way Eridan's lips tasted whenever he had the impulse to claw his way up Equius and kiss him.

They sat in the abulation trap, and Eridan washed his hair. "I was gonna win, you know. No way I wasn't."

Equius won with uncomfortable frequency, considering Eridan's obsession with strategy. He could tell his visit was chafing, and Eridan meant it when he said he wanted him to leave. "No. I would have had you in check in ten moves."

"Yeah, right," Eridan scoffed. His long, manicured claws scraped comfortably along Equius' scalp. "Sure, I'd give you that, fine, but I'd have had you in the end. I wish I remembered where everthin was. I got another board around somewhere, plus one on the husktop all else fails."

Equius found himself relaxing, slowly, in the warm water while his matesprit massaged his head. "I remember."

"Sure, except a few pieces'll be someplace different than what was actual and suddenly you're in checkmate and fuck you," Eridan said, "I know how this goes."

"I wouldn't need to," Equius said. "I was going to win." Other than a burst of uncontrollable rage when he lost, he wouldn't care if Eridan won. They mostly just played because Eridan decided they would.

It was starting to get light, by the time they got out of the trap, so they decided that Equius would stay through the day. He intended to sleep, but Eridan loaded up a chess simulator on his husktop and they fussed over it trying to remember exactly where the pieces had been.

Equius seemed to remember better, so Eridan finally let him choose where everything went. Equius fudged the pieces a little, in his own favor, correcting an earlier mistake that he was regretting. Eridan didn't realize trick until after Equius won the game, and then it was too late in the day to reset the board.

Eridan pulled out an energy rifle and put a hole straight through his own husktop. "You cheatin landgrubbin spawn of a--" Eridan broke off and frowned at his smoking laptop.

Equius was also looking unhappily at it. "I've stayed too long. I am not the only one who needs his moirail."

"...no kiddin, I guess." He looked tired. "Let's just get some sleep, fore the moons sneak up on us. I still got shit to do tomorrow. Probably be gone before you even get yourself up."

He would be hunting, Equius assumed. He couldn't approve, even though it was necessary, so Eridan apparently wasn't going to say where he was going. "I see."

"I'll miss you," Eridan said, "I mean it, Eq."

Equius nodded. "I will see you again."

"Soon."

"Yes."

Eridan kissed him, and then pulled him to his recuperacoon.

\----

When Equius awoke, Eridan was gone.

He'd left a note telling Equius to make him a new chess set and keep his ganderbulbs peeled for the drones. They were coming soon--he had a feeling. And then he went on for a paragraph about how the feeling wasn't magic intuition, or anything stupid and fake like that, but obviously it was some kind of science based instinct. And then he had kissed the bottom of the note, leaving a smear of purple lipstick, and signed his full name and title.

Equius tried to fold the note, crumpled it by accident, and took it with him when he left.


End file.
